Swans on Tea

Physics, tech and humor. Because science and learning are cool, and life’s too short not to laugh.

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Category: Time

Who Watches the Watch, Man?

6 May, 2009 (04:03) | History, Tech, Time | No comments

Who Watches the Watchman?
Let’s say you own a big building full of valuable stuff. How do you make sure that the night watchman patrolling your factory floor or museum galleries after closing time actually makes his rounds? How do you know he’s inspecting every hallway, floor, and stairwell in the facility? How do you know [...]

It’s About Time, Part II

23 February, 2009 (05:04) | Experiments, Physics, Tech, Time | No comments

Super clocks: More accurate than time itself
An article discussing the progression of atomic clock technology, and also relating to something I posted earlier, a discussion of what happens when the next generation of atomic clocks is deployed: the clocks won’t be the limiting factor in determining the time.
To tell the time consistently, all clocks [...]

It’s Pi Cubed Minutes after the Square Root of 121

4 February, 2009 (04:48) | Tech, Time | No comments

Clock for geeks

How Atomic Clocks Don’t Work

27 January, 2009 (04:50) | Physics, Time | No comments

I was listening to a podcast recently that delved into timekeeping and atomic clocks, and was surprised that they got a couple of details wrong. I haven’t done a post explaining how atomic clocks work, because that’s something easily found on the intertubes, and so I’m not particularly motivated to recreate Wikipedia or HowStuffWorks.
But [...]

And I Say, It’s Alright

25 January, 2009 (06:18) | Physics, Time | No comments

Here comes the sun, or at least its shadow, at Dot Physics: When is the Sun directly overhead?
There’s a nice little video that accompanies the post which also demonstrates some of the foibles of doing experiments
What I want to do is change the question a little bit. Rhett points out that one of the [...]

A 2009 Top-Ten List Already?

7 January, 2009 (05:08) | Time | No comments

Top 10 techno-calendars for 2009

Time to Answer the Wrong Question

6 January, 2009 (09:30) | Time | No comments

What Do Timekeepers Do?
On New Year’s Eve at 6:59:59 p.m. ET, an “international consortium of timekeepers” will add one second to the world’s clock. How do you get to be an official timekeeper?
Earn a Ph.D. in astronomy and move to France. Tweaks to the official clock are announced by the Earth Orientation Center, a Paris-based [...]

Nothing New About It

1 January, 2009 (00:03) | Time | No comments

Happy return to an arbitrarily chosen starting point in the orbit about our gravitational enslaver

Pedant on the Loose!

31 December, 2008 (11:31) | Rants, Time | 2 comments

Blake’s mention of a “First Night” celebration in Boston, coupled with memories of many stories about similar celebrations in upstate New York (Albany and Saratoga), have triggered this.
The problem: “First Night” celebrations are held on New Year’s Eve, which is the LAST night of the year. I mean seriously, WTF? After midnight, [...]

This May Not Bother Anybody Else

11 December, 2008 (04:58) | Physics, Tech, Time | No comments

… but it bothers a geek like me. Yeah, another leap second story. I suspect these will propagate, but like a game of “whisper” the errors will compound. Three…Two…One…One…Happy New Year!
They mention THE atomic clock (ha! there are many atomic clocks) and cesium clock/standard, but the picture is of a mercury ion [...]

Wait a Moment …

10 December, 2008 (04:48) | Time | No comments

Wait a second: 2008 gets extended by timekeepers
I already announced this, but noticed this blurb:
At the Naval Observatory they have a party at 6:59:60 p.m.
“We watch the clock and make sure nothing breaks,” Chester said. “It’s an early New Year’s celebration.” A brief one.
That’s right. There’s a party that lasts all of one second. [...]

More Clocks

8 December, 2008 (04:54) | Tech, Time | No comments

Ceiling Clock
Message in a clock ensemble
More than 500 clocks; every 12 hours the collection aligns into a readable message.

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